About NYLC

York and North Yorkshire have a vibrant voluntary and community sector with a robust learning and skills culture

North Yorkshire Learning Consortium (NYLC) was constituted in September 2007 as a not for profit company limited by guarantee. Formed by, and for, the Third Sector, NYLC was established to provide a strategic voice and specialist services for learning, skills and employment activities for the Third Sector across York and North Yorkshire.

It Aims To:

Provide a strategic voice for the Third Sector in the areas of learning, skills and employment

Ensure that the Third Sector is recognised as a key provider of learning, skills and employability services across the sub region

Provide comprehensive contract management services and build the capacity of the sector to deliver services including contracts, grants and research

NYLC champions learning and development activities through representation, information and development to ensure learning is delivered to meet the needs of individual learners, employers and their employees and volunteers.

NYLC aids partnership working between organisations to improve the provision, success and quality of services throughout York and North Yorkshire.

The Model:

NYLC is designed around a ''hub and spoke'' consortia model. This enables the Consortium to offer affiliate membership to a diverse range of Third Sector organisations, across a wide range of activities, giving our members the opportunity to engage with the ''hub'' at whatever level is appropriate to them at any particular time. Organisations may be involved in formal contracting or be receiving development support or simply accessing information to inform their service development/delivery. This ensures fair access to the consortium and the opportunities it offers to all Third Sector organisations, regardless of size, client group, geographical location (within the sub region) and enables organisations to dip in and out of activities/opportunities as appropriate to their need.

A core aim of NYLC is to ensure that the Third Sector is recognised as a key provider of learning, skills and employability services across the sub region. Activities to achieve this aim include:

Affiliate Members and Delivery Partners

NYLC aims to increase its reach to all appropriate Third Sector organisations across the sub region. Links are established with district and regional Third Sector infrastructure organisations and networking and one-to-one meetings are carried out with relevant stakeholders, across sectors. Increases in affiliate membership, delivery partners and other professionals are monitored regularly and demonstrate on-going growth.

Increasing Engagement and Widening the Provider Base

NYLC aims to increase opportunities for the Third Sector to engage in learning, skills and employment activities by successfully tendering for a wide range of projects. NYLC acts as a delivery agent for grants programmes (NLDC, Community Grants), lead partner and contract manager for service provision (Train to Gain, Adult Engagement, NEET, Think Positive) and has undertaken an action research project exploring barriers to skills progression in rural areas, involving four pilot projects in Ryedale, the Wolds and the East Riding.

In addition, NYLC is delivering a Future Jobs Fund contract which is providing a range of employment opportunities within Third Sector organisations to young people who are classified as long term unemployed. Attracting young people is a key workforce development objective for the sector.

The activities have enabled us to engage with a wide cross section of Third Sector organisations, of all sizes and across all geographical areas in the sub region.

Management Information Hub

A key benefit of the Consortium model is the hub's ability to draw together information, in a standardised format, across all our services to provide effective and accurate management information regarding the Third Sector offer in York and North Yorkshire. Our Maytas Management system enables comprehensive data collection across all NYLC programmes. Bringing together information from a range of providers enables us to truly illustrate the effectiveness of the provision as a whole. This has been clearly demonstrated via our NLDC contracts, which have shown impressive outcomes on the revenue projects and highlights the effectiveness of small amounts of funding invested in community learning, combined with the comprehensive support structure provided by NYLC.

The information gathered on the affiliate membership form feeds an Access database designed to provide comprehensive information on providers. Data can be cut as required to inform service delivery, for example, which providers currently hold appropriate quality standards, which geograhpical areas they operate in, which client groups they provide specialist services to. This enables NYLC to target information to appropriate organisations when opportunities arise and demonstrate the breadth of the sector to policy and decision makers.

Sustaining the Third Sector and NYLC

A key strand to our activity is to lobby, influence and facilitate sustainable funding for the wider sector. Every opportunity is taken to raise this issue at all levels. In addition, by raising the reputation of the sector and NYLC as a high quality deliverer of services, new funding opportunities are being presented. This was demonstrated recently in DWP/ESF funding rounds, when prime providers approached NYLC to be partners as a result of the sector's growing reputation and the ease of engagement via the hub and spoke model.

NYLC draws down fair management fees and funds for additional services from contracts it has achieved and is seeking to become self sustaining via this route.

Strategic Lead

NYLC aims to be recognised as a strategic lead for the Third Sector in the area of learning, skills and employability. It does this by raising awareness of the scope and type of services provided by the sector, influencing policy and direction to ensure appropriate engagement and to ensure the sector's grassroots voice is heard in policy decisions and subsequent implementation. The Third Sector is diverse but often seen as a ''whole'' which causes confusion to funders and policy makers engaging with it.

The diagram below aims to ''de-mystify'' the sector and demonstrate that each segment requires different support to aid its growth and sustainability.

The top segment refers to services of all sizes, often termed social enterprise or trading services. They are structured in the same way as commercial organisations and aim to be self-funding either through the provision of services or trading, but they reinvest all profits back into the delivery of their services/social aims.

The middle segment refers to services that are likely to employ paid staff but are reluctant to engage with mainstream/bureaucratic processes.

These services need to generate significant income through grants and fundraising to sustain their activities.

The bottom segment represents community services that are usually volunteer-led and require very little funding but with adequate support are able to provide high quality and life-changing opportunities to their members.

Organisations rarely fit neatly into one segment, however, the triangle does provide a framework for understanding how the various types of service are organised within organisations and what their funding requirements may be.

NYLC, an infrastructure organisation, recognises that each segment has different support and funding requirements and aims to represent each segment effectively through its strategic voice activities.

Meet The NYLC Team:

Sue Vasey - Chief Executive Officer

Lesley Swan - Operations Manager

Kim Tiffney - Admin Co-ordinator

Sam Alexander - Sector Services Manager

Laura Harris - Sector Services Co-ordinator

Simon Watterson - Partnership Manager

Alice Sizer - Assistant Partnership Manager

Lee Steel - Partnership Coordinator

Stephen Cowan - Partnership Assistant

Alan Duffy - Finance Co-ordinator

Patrice Gotting - Administrative Assistant

 

NYLC's Board of Directors:

Joan Palmer – Non-Executive Chair